The commissione’s origin is disputed between external threat and American import
Evidence
- Two anecdotal accounts exist of the origins of the commissione. A 1963 police report claims that it was prompted by the formation of the antimafia parliamentary commission early in that decade. The testimony of mafiosi denies such causation, countering that the commissione predates the parliamentary commission (TB: II, 27). The mafiosi maintain that the idea of a commissione came from their smarter American cousins, who had long made successful use of such a scheme. Charles (“Lucky”) Luciano and Joe Bonanno are both said to have been responsible for making the suggestion during a visit to Sicily in 1957, and in particular at a meeting at the Hotel delle Palme in Palermo (CPM: 4-xiv, 1087ff.). Bonanno did indeed travel to Sicily in that period. In his autobiography he observes that, unlike in the United States, no such committee had previously existed in Sicily; but he says nothing about his possible role in its inauguration (1983: 159). Nor does Luciano in the biography he inspired, although he too was in Italy for a while in the 1950s. — Diego Gambetta, The Sicilian Mafia The Business of…, 909
Categorization
Category: Factual Claims
- QUESTION: If the commissione came from Lucky Luciano’s American model, does that make it an institutional export of a more mature private-protection market — supporting institutional diffusion theories?